Five Surprising Places To Find Love

Tired of the bar scene? Skeptical of the chance office romance has for success? These five real-life couples found each other unexpectedly in some highly unusual spots.

By Susan Johnstonf you’ve tried all the usual spots to scope out potential dates (the gym, the local coffee shop, speed dating events) and still haven’t met The One, then take heart. Read on to see how these five couples met their matches in the most unexpected places.

Love in the snow lane
For Marie Melsheimer, 35, love didn’t walk in; it slid into the back of her car during an icy winter in Bend, OR 17 years ago. “I was stopped at a stop

All told, our first date was 10 hours… and the rest is history!

sign and my car stalled,” says Melsheimer. “His truck slid into the back of my car and he broke my taillights and dented my bumper.” The guy offered to fix her car, so they exchanged phone numbers. She blames his inexperience with the icy road conditions for their fender bender, while he blames her car stalling. Regardless of who was at fault, Melsheimer says it was love at first sight. “I was on my way to my grandmother’s house,” she recalls, “and after leaving him, I arrived there to tell her I had just met the man I was going to marry.” True to both their words, he fixed her tail lights — and they married several years later.

A purr-fect match
Plenty of romances come courtesy of some trusty canine companions at the dog park. Without daily walks, though, cat owners don’t have a similar excuse to socialize. That didn’t stop Whitney Shore, 26, and her now-boyfriend from striking up a conversation at the vet’s office. “I was bringing one of my cats in after work on a Tuesday, and he was bringing in one of his cats, too,” says Shore. “I noticed him when he walked in and was pretty excited when he sat down a couple of seats down from me. We started talking and continued talking for the next hour.” Though he’d already left by the time Shore’s appointment wrapped up, the clever cat-lover pieced together details from their conversation and left a note on Shore’s car with his phone number. “We met for brunch that Sunday, which turned into us going to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, which turned into dinner, which then turned into a movie,” she says. “All told, our first date was 10 hours… and the rest is history!”

Sparks fly at 30,000 feet
Scott Trosclair, 29, was flying to Oakland, CA when a girl with big, grayish-green eyes sat down in the seat next to him. Her name was Emily, he learned, and they struck up a conversation, chatting about his move from New York City to the Bay Area and the fact that they were both wearing Rainbow sandals. Though they talked for the entirety of the flight, Trosclair waited until the last second to ask for her number in the baggage claim area, just in case she turned him down. Fortunately, she didn’t — and four years later, Trosclair planned a surprise proposal on another shared flight. “We met flying from Orange County to Oakland, so I proposed on a flight going the opposite path,” says Trosclair. “When we landed, I had her brother, mother and her mom’s boyfriend meet

Now, eight years later, they’re married and have a child together.

up with us in a limo.” Since they met while traveling, the pair is including some airplane and travel motifs in their wedding this spring.

Tweet love
Even social networks designed exclusively for online conversation can lead to real-world connections. Just ask MoniQue Shaldjian, 24, who met her fiancé Mike at a Tweetup in Phoenix last year. “I had seen his Twitter handle in a retweet here or there,” she remembers. “So, I’m at this event, and I got a tweet from him that said, ‘don’t leave, I want to meet you.’” She went to shake his hand and he went for a bear hug. Later, they both went to a bar to chat, and the conversation flowed as if they were old friends. Although Mike didn’t ask for MoniQue’s phone number that night, they started following each other on Twitter and she texted him after seeing he’d tweeted his phone number to a client. Things took off from there. MoniQue says that she “never imagined” she’d meet her husband at a Tweetup, but their shared interest in social media has helped the couple to bond.

Connecting on a commuter train
Long train rides may seem like a waste of time for tired commuters, but Holly Johnson, 27, actually met her husband Jesse while commuting from Boston to Worcester, MA. “He said that he saw me in the window and thought I was pretty,” Johnson recalls. But she wasn’t looking for a love connection, so when Jesse asked to sit next to her, she answered: “I don’t know why people ask if they can sit next to someone else — it’s a free country.” Still, it’ a long ride to Worcester, so the two started chatting about politics and discovered they shared some similar viewpoints. Jesse offered Holly a ride from the train station, but she insisted on taking a cab instead. “I thought he was a weirdo stalker,” she admits. “As it turns out, he really was just being nice.” Holly reluctantly gave him her cell number, not expecting to hear from him. However, Jesse called the next day. Now, eight years later, they’re married and have a child together.
Susan Johnston is a freelance writer who has written for The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, Parade, and many other publications. She met her boyfriend online but loves hearing unusual “how we met” stories.